“We welcome Google to stay if it wants, but it has to abide by Chinese law. There is no space to bargain on this issue. … One thing is certain: the earth will not stop spinning because Google leaves. Chinese Internet users will continue to go online.”

The one thing Google should be consistent about is why it is considering leaving. Is it because of cyber attacks against its services? Or is it because of Chinese policies regarding censorship of the Dalai Lama and Falun Gong, for instance? Or is it because the Chinese attempted to purloin data from Gmail accounts regarding dissident groups? This is a set of talking points that needs to stay consistent if the company’s arguments are to be well-received not just here, but in China as well.

Christopher Bronk is the Baker Institute fellow in technology, society and public policy. He previously served as a career diplomat with the United States Department of State on assignments both overseas and in Washington, D.C.

2 Responses

The Chinese think they are doing the right thing to protect their people from pornography and anti-communist propaganda. The U.S. and Europe are actively considering internet censorship against racist (in the opinions of the elite) and radical websites. The danger of course is that if they do this they will deny freedom of speech and I would argue the right of cyber assembly. As the internet has changed the rules in political movements that can broadcast news world wide with the click of a mouse the powers that be want us to just consume goods and let them run the goverment without opposition from the weirdos.

I find it spectacularily amusing that we run propaganda on how awful the Chinese are when our own goverments are trying to figure out a sneaky method of doing the same thing for different state reasons.lol

Google shouldn’t leave China, nor run away from a ‘conflict’ with existing Chinese law or scared authorities. Active engagement with the Chinese public is still the best policy – having long term impact. Instead, I believe Google should route all Chinese-originated search requests to a clearly identifiable ‘Google_CENSORED’ webpage / search results page.

(If google can’t actually say it’s results are censored, then it should use every language variant available to strongly imply that the results are censored because of Chinese law.)

What’s more, for every search result presented, it should append each and every results page with a set of visual examples which compare the comprehensive communication activities and information available to the rest of the world to that restricted set available to the Chinese public.

Through such a means, Google advertises its on-going displeasure with internet censorship policies.

And whilst they are at it, why not create somple simple Google game: a viral, multi-player ‘whacky chinese censorship’ game… one group of users try to collaboratively build an object/accomplish some task, and the other group of users have fun slashing out words / images / ideas / people etc.

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